Plainfield, NJ
Plainfield, NJ's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
USFS scores Plainfield at the 26th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (close to the middle of USFS's national wildfire-risk range), a figure built from 11,778 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Plainfield at the 26th percentile, close to its 26th-percentile risk score.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Only 20.6% of Plainfield's 11,778 buildings carry Direct exposure and 1.2% carry Indirect; the remaining 78.2% are Minimal, which shifts the risk driving this page's score toward the surrounding landscape rather than any one structure. At 11,778 buildings, this is a substantial built environment, so the shares below describe a real population of structures, not a handful of edge cases.
Plainfield against the rest of the country
There's little gap between Plainfield's 26th national percentile and its 17th percentile inside New Jersey, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Plainfield ranks 23,424 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 1,326 by building count (1 is largest). Within New Jersey alone, it ranks 581 of 700 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for New Jersey on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Plainfield
At the 26th national percentile, Plainfield rates moderate for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
What would actually reduce this score
Even with 78.2% of Plainfield outside USFS's Direct and Indirect zones, basic hardening — gutter maintenance, ember-resistant vents — is inexpensive relative to the regional burn-probability risk noted above. Details in the home-hardening guide.
Where Plainfield's figures come from
Plainfield's 26th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. The exposure-zones guide covers what Plainfield's dominant minimal exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.